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Snack

Mock Oysters

A fried corn batter snack resembling oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Mock Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Grate the corn from the cob.

  2. In a bowl, mix the grated corn with the eggs, sweet milk, and salt.

  3. Add enough flour to create a soft batter.

Fry

  1. Drop a teaspoonful of the batter at a time into hot lard and fry until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn
Provides the bulk of the fritter, along with starch and moisture.
Eggs
Bind the grated corn and help the fritters hold their shape.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the fritters structure as they set.
Lard
Conducts heat to cook the fritters and promotes golden browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The lard must be hot so the batter sets and browns quickly on contact. If the fat is too cool, the batter soaks up grease, becoming heavy and greasy instead of crisp and golden.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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